5 Must-Read Strategies to Maximize StumbleUpon

StumbleUpon.com just doesn’t get me any traffic. StumbleUpon.com is a waste of time.

If you’ve heard these complaints or have made them yourself, this article is definitely for you. I’ve been a “Member since Aug 06, 2007“and StumbleUpon.com (SU) has treated me really well. Here are a five specific keys to getting traffic with SU:

Make friends with SU users who aren’t new to the SU scene. Find top stumblers who like things you like and add them to your subscriber list. Don’t just add all the top stumblers – see what they have in their favorites, compare it to what you plan to favorite, and make sure it’s a fairly reasonable “good fit”.

Next Step: Get to know these people! How? – stumble posts they create, discover their stuff. BUT, don’t SPAM them. If I was a top stumbler and I got a ton of friend requests from newbies, I’d probably just ignore them until they got their feet wet a bit. StumbleUpon recently added this new function too, which makes it even easier to see how close you “match up” with other Stumblers:

Socialize! This is what SU and all the other “social networks” are all about – socializing! Once you add friends with common interests, don’t be afraid to chat with them, send them a message via the SU message box, (here’s a quick view of the “Send a message” box)

ask them to Thumb Up and review something, etc. You’ll get no’s, ignored, and once in a great while one of them will actually do something to help you. This will probably happen more than you expect if you’re persistent and personalize your message.

Don’t just book mark your own stuff! I know, to most of you this is a “no-brainer” but come on – if you just add your own stuff you will be tagged as a first class SPAMMER! Besides that, the “important” SUers will ignore everything you do and you may get banned from SU. To avoid this beginners mistake, find stuff you like that’s related to your website and add it to your favorites: become a part of your industries community! If you don’t know where to look, go to the SU search bar in the top right corner of the SU screen and type in one of the keywords that relates to your industry.

Don’t be too specific in your keyword search, and you’ll find other sites that will actually provide you with great stuff you can write about for your own blog.

“If you fail to plan, you plan to fail!” Yep, that’s right, if you don’t have a social media marketing plan of attack, you’ll waste a lot of time and, just as the complaints at the top of this post say, SU (or any other social media site) won’t do anything for you.

If, after you implement this advice, you are still echoing the same sentiments found at the top of this post, you probably haven’t put each step in to practice fully Happy Stumbling!

UPDATE!The Power of stumbleupon links. Out of curiosity, I decided to check on my placement for the keyword phrase “Stumbleupon strategies”. To my surprise, out of 1,430,000 websites, this article is number 7. Here’s the proof!

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Comments

Good post Nate! I agree with your comments and think many people don’t use Stumble effectively. For anyone new to Stumble, these are great pointers and should help them get familiar. One additional suggestion I would make is to update your “Topic” preferences as your interests update and change. If you are trying out a new home budget software then update your topic preferences to include some areas of the personal finance section. That way you can find pages related to your current interests and review pages that relate to what you are currently doing.

Thanks for the post. The main question I have about the SU user interface is:

How is SU harder than Digg?

I think that’s not true at all: SU is so much easier with the SU toolbar. I can “thumb up” anything really easily and then give it a review if I want. With Digg, I have to get the domain name, create a description, actually go to Digg, etc.

Please explain if there’s an easier way with Digg.

I’d say Delicious is also really easy with the icons at the top of the screen near the address bar.

I must say Nate you have a lot of great info here as I have only started to read some of your articles under hot topics as well as this one in which I was directed to from StumbleUpon by SeoSmarty. Now as newcomer to niche/affiliate marketing I’m finding out there is a lot of writing involved and a lot to learn and I keep procrastinating by doing a lot of stumbling lately now maybe I can procrastinate positively lol

Welcome to Moller Marketing! Writing is a big part of an online business, especially if you’re in to blogging and affiliate stuff. Even if you are selling products from a dropshipper, it’s important to write – articles, press releases, reviews, etc. Yet another reason why its so vital that you do what you love to do – not just what you hope makes you the most money.

Hey Nate, love the article! I have never used stumbleupon, but will immediately get familiar with it. I was wondering if you could post some ‘example’ messages you send to other SUers, because it seems that messaging is vital so you dont get booted off.
thanks
aaron

i have been using SU for a few years now and recently have wanted to use it to help my business. thanks for the info. i love SU but after this post i can tell that i will love it even more if i optimize my account and “socialize it”.

Thanks for the comment! SU has been one of my best friends when it comes to getting traffic and links quickly. You just have to be aware of a few things going in:

1. The traffic will rarely if ever convert to buyers.
2. The main goal should be in developing friends in your industries and sharing links.
3. It can be a big “time waster” if you’re not careful.
4. Make sure you set settings to PG or you’ll “Stumble” on to shady stuff

I’m sure there are other things to be aware of too but that’s a bit more “food for thought”.

I suppose it’s like any other type of social media; you have to just do that, socialize. I think all of us are looking for a quick fix when it comes to FREE traffic, and the truth is they just don’t exist!

Question for you- none of us have time to sit on a place like SU or Digg all day and socialize, stumble other things, Digg content, interact, etc…

How much time do you find yourself in each of these social media sites?

The more you follow a schedule the better! I find that SU is part of my daily routine, especially after writing a new blog post. Stumble is one of the many ways I get it out to the public (my SU friends).

The best thing is that there are many ways to tie some of the social media sites together: ie. SU to Facebook, Twitter to Facebook, Digg to Facebook, etc. What’s cool about that is that it looks like I’m on all these sites all the time, when in actuality I may not be as much.

Luckily, doing this stuff is my life so it makes it easier to make the time necessary to invest in all of it.

@Ed yes, stumbleupon can bring lots of traffic on a sporadic basis. Follow these tips and connect with the right people and the numbers can get much bigger. Look forward to watching your progress via SU and other streams. Talk soon!

Great article! I still have a lot to learn about the whole social network thing. I am amazed at how fast it is growing and the amount of time people spend on them. I am beginning to hear more and more about social networks on TV as well. There is no question that is needs to be an active part of building my network and adding credibility to what I am trying to accomplish.